Jared Dean - Have you ever wondered how your Netflix account knows exactly what movies to recommend? Or how Amazon can keep you continually buying random things you never thought you needed? Or how those Facebook ads are always eerily targeted directly at you? Well the answer is simple, Big Data.  Ok - maybe it's not simple, but it is something we can understand and even harness to make a difference in our lives and in our organizations or industries. This week we speak with Jared Dean, author of the new book, Big Data, Data Mining, and Machine Learning. This book was recently ranked the #1 "Big Data Read of the Summer" by The Hive. Jared Dean is a Senior Director of Research and Development at SAS. He is responsible for the development of SAS' worldwide data mining solutions. This includes customer engagements, new feature development, technical support, sales support, and product integration. Prior to joining SAS, Dean worked as a mathematical statistician for the US Census Bureau. He holds an MS degree in computational statistics from George Mason University. "Innovation is largely incremental.  Most of the time we are making small steps forward, not giant leaps.  " - Jared Dean Quotes from Jared: What we learn in this episode: Can you accurately predict the NFL by using Big Data? How do outliers play a key role in data analysis? Is there a difference between an algorithm and an equation? How do the self driving cars from Google use Big Data to operate? Resources: Big Data, Data Mining, and Machine Learning http://support.sas.com/publishing/authors/dean.html Twitter @JaredLDean -- This episode is brought to you by: 99Designs: Go to 99designs.com/SMART to get a $99 Power Pack of services for FREE today! ting: mobile that makes sense. For $25 off your first device or a $25 credit, use smartpeople.ting.com and save money on your cell phone bill today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices